Yosemite was the most beautiful National Park along our journey and where we had one of the most memorable experiences. Instead of fancy lodges, we camped out at a backpacker’s campground. Instead of doing day hikes, we went for overnight backpacking.
Day 1 was a warm-up day in preparation for the overnight hike. After pitching our tent at the backpacker’s campground, we leisurely checked out the meadows and did a short hike to Vernal Falls where we saw a long ribbon of rainbow. It was a perfect warm up hike!
By the time we got back near the campground, it was dark and the river had flooded. We had to cross the icy mountain stream to get to the campground. We dipped our bare feet into the ice cold river. It was so cold that our feet felt like needles were piercing them. Luckily, our camping spot had a warm fire and we fell asleep to the warm flicker of the flames.
On Day 2 we got up early and headed to the start of the Snow Creek trail. We started with a nice, spring like temperature at 6:30 in the morning. Sunil had 50 pounds in his pack, while I had about 35. The Snow Creek trail was short, but fierce, with over 2700 feet of elevation gain in less than 2.5 miles, including endless switchbacks! About ¾ of mile in, the sun was already getting strong and the pack was feeling heavy. By a mile and half, the weather had completely changed to summer, hot and dry, making us to stop almost every 20 minutes for a water break. What pushed us to the top was wishful thinking that we were almost at the top and that the hardest part would be over soon. We thought it would be easy breeze once we got over with the first leg of elevation, not knowing what was still to come.
By the time we got to the top, it was a lunch time. It was incredibly nice to put our packs down. We sat in the shade by the river to boil up a quick lunch. After taking a short break, we put on the packs and continued with a goal to make it to the North Dome before dusk.
After the elevation gain, the air was much cooler and we saw brown leaves on the ground and trees instead of green. We felt like we were walking in the midst of the fall season. Soon thereafter, the ground was covered with about 10 feet of snow. It was like a ski slope without the assurance of a path ahead of us. With snow completely covering the ground, there was no trail to be found. We put on our winter jackets and tried to maneuver our way. Sunil who was usually uncanny with directions, was puzzled with the terrain. He guided our direction with a compass and GPS, but had to stop every 100 feet to recheck. Sometimes, we encountered weak snow patches and fell through into the holes below. It was challenging and Sunil asked in exhaustion, “do you think we should turn back?” “No let’s keep going,” I shouted with faith that he would find us a way out. As we continued to struggle up the path, I spotted two guys coming down from the other side, one guy with short skis and the other with snow shoes. I screamed with joy as if I encountered an oasis in a dessert, “I see people!” Sunil asked the guys “Do you know where the path is?” They shouted back. “Hey guys, no idea, but don’t trust any of these footsteps that are everywhere. Seems like a lot people didn’t know where they were going and sort of wandered around.” So helpful I thought to myself! It was still so good to see other hikers in the middle of nowhere. After repeatedly getting lost and then finding our way back again, we finally got to a point where there was not much snow and found a trail sign. Now back to fall weather!
It was almost 5pm by the time we got back on a trail, so we decided to camp nearby and spent the night in the midst of wilderness. We first pitched the tent, and put our bear canister about 100 feet away by two big trees. While Sunil prepared dinner, I collected small stones in front of the tent to throw at bears should they try to steal our picnic baskets. Though dinner was your typical salty camping food, it was tasty and felt good to fill our bellies. After dinner, we snuggled into our sleeping bags, stretched our legs and tended to our tired bodies. I got up shortly thereafter to look out of the tent through the small window on the side. “Oh dear, I think I see a bear” I whispered. Sunil got up right away, and asked, “Where?” “Behind those two trees right by our canister,” I replied. “Is that one or two bears? I think I see two,” Sunil said. I tried to follow where he pointed out behind one of the trees. And I pondered for a sec, “is that a shadow or is that real?” We both carefully looked to see if there was a movement and discussed our action plan. We looked at it little more carefully, and started questioning ourselves. “Are we going crazy and seeing something that’s not real?” I said. After Sunil carefully examined the movements around the tree, he agreed and laughed. “We might be making this up from being tired and paranoid about bear encounters,” Sunil said. Then, he went outside just to double check and indeed we were just being too paranoid. After the imaginary bear incident, we had a good chuckle. Our bodies melted away inside of the sleeping bags.
Even before the sun rose, Sunil woke up in shivers. It was too cold for his sleeping bag so we decided to start the day early. Now it was time to find a way back down via Yosemite Falls trail. We began with fall weather. It was muddy at times and we had to cross rivers via fallen logs along the way. Sunil was a champ directing us in the middle of the unknown path, but it was a lot easier without 10 feet of snow. We occasionally saw other groups of hikers and it helped to confirm that we were on the right trail. After a while, we started seeing more people and finally got to an overview point. The view was outstanding and we took time to take pictures and eat lunch.
We started climbing down with Yosemite fall at our side. With record snow this year, the fall was gushing and sprinkling us with mist along the trail. We felt so lucky to see that much water all around us. Descending was much easier than ascending on the previous day and we took a few poses with Yosemite fall in the background. We hurried to the bottom of the trail, and by mid-afternoon, we had successfully come to the trail’s end!
The first thing that we had in mind was having a nice celebratory cold beer. We showered first and followed it with the most delicious, tasty beer! After seeing four seasons over one night, getting lost, finding our way back, and seeing imaginary bears, that beer was the incredible!
On our last day before we departed, we leisurely checked out several more trails and falls, including Vernal Falls, Bridalveil Falls, and Sentinel Falls. We only wished we had more time to do other backpacking trails such as Half Dome.
We definitely will come back for more adventures!
SooJin & Sunil 